“Yeah. This is what Maddox chose for you and him. Skulls painted on half the face with all black clothing. I think he was trying to keep to the whole ‘Day of the Dead’ theme too.” She smiles. “I don’t think he was expecting for her to curl your hair with a large barrel iron and have the makeup artist completely do your makeup on one side while still making the costume paint feminine with a touch of glitter around your black eye though. Riggan wanted to do spooky costumes, but usually scary is ugly. I might have agreed to something like this had I seen it before choosing.”
I laugh. “Well, for a pregnant girl you’re rocking the flapper costume. Women all over the globe hate girls like you. You only hold pregnancy in one small ball on your lower stomach. Are you sure you want to go to a club again when you can’t drink? The fringe in the dress hides it pretty well, but that can’t be fun. I’m fine with doing something else if everyone just wants to hang out together.”
“Are you kidding? Riggan is letting me wear a pair of my heels for this. I’m taking advantage. Plus, I like social events, and you only turn twenty-one once. I’ve never been one to get drunk a lot, even before I got pregnant. Being out without getting drunk doesn’t faze me at all.”
My mouth opens. “He told you it was my birthday?”
Her brows turn down. “Was he not supposed to? Why would you want to keep your birthday a secret?”
I blink at her like an idiot. “I just haven’t celebrated it since the last one I spent with Maddox. My age ruined us. It’s what got my son taken away. Then every year after that I aged was miserable without him. Your birthday isn’t special if you can’t spend it with the people you love, as in plural. Age hasn’t been a good part of my life in a long time. It’s easy to hide my birthday since people are focused on Halloween. I wasn’t expecting him to remember until it was over.”
She grabs her purse and her key and opens the door. “That’s terrible, Gabby. I have a bottle of champagne chilled for you. We’re going to make this one the best you’ve ever had. Leave the shopping bags. We’ll get them tomorrow.”
We both get out of the car and shut the doors. I start to walk ahead of her but stop suddenly at the sound of a haunting melody that’s wrapping around the property like an invisible cloak or fog, much like horror films, and I take in the front lawn. God, I must have been glued to my phone when she pulled up to miss this. What the hell? Why would anyone wait until the day of Halloween to decorate?
Evil jack-o-lanterns line the walkway, each giving off a flickering glow against the night, making them look angry. Ghosts hang from the palms, moving with the fall breeze. Headstones are positioned in the grass like a cemetery. I glance at each one, reading the names. Each of us living in the house has one. That’s a little creepy. Mine looks freshly dug, loose dirt around it, and has a shovel stabbed in the grass next to it with a bloody handle. An image of a grim reaper appears behind the headstone, staring at me, and within seconds, it’s gone. I blink over and over, trying to figure out what made that appear and go away like that, my breathing escalating.
A cackle screams through the night, making me jump, and suddenly a witch on a broom comes sailing through the air in front of me, making a full circle, before returning to the direction she came. “Shit.” I look up, wondering how in the hell she was flying, and notice a track. At least I’m not crazy. “Sayler, how did they do all this in like eight hours?” I ask as I turn around, but she’s nowhere to be found. “Sayler?” Where did she go?
An evil laugh sounds over a loudspeaker, and then an altered voice comes through, disguising who it is. “Welcome home. Enter at your own risk.”
I should have known Maddox wasn’t going to let my damn birthday go. Goofball. I walk forward, along the pathway to the entrance, my heart racing. A caldron bubbles with a green substance at the end, but something is visible beneath the surface, causing me to lean closer. It’s a human head in distress, taking on a melting effect. Fingers push through the liquid. I jerk back, just before a black cat rubs along my ankle as it meows, making me scream. Where the fuck did they get a live cat? I kick my heel out just enough to hint for it to go away, not hurting it. I hate cats. They’re evil little creatures. “Shoo. Go away.”
Fog billows out of the entryway, making it impossible to see where you’re stepping, which isn’t smart in heels and a short dress. Cobwebs spread along the corners above the door. I step carefully, and just as I walk toward the heavy wooden door, it creaks open, more of that daunting music daring me to enter. “Hello,” I call out as I push it open. “Sayler . . . Presley . . . Are y’all in here?”
No one answers. I move farther inside. The area is dim, only lamps and candles lit, and the Halloween decor is speckled all over the main living space. More fog is covering the floor space, no doubt coming from a fog machine somewhere. The door slams behind me, scaring me, and the deadbolt slides into place. My muscles jump from the unexpected noise, and I spin around, my eyes setting on a tall guy in a hoodie with the hood up, a little bit of dark hair peeking out, with scary red and black makeup covering his face like a demon. “Ready to die?” he says, taunting me, but it’s not a voice I recognize.
I back up. “Who are you?”
“The better question is, who are you?”
A high-pitched scream sounds upstairs. “No!” Her voice comes out in a cry. “Please, don’t hurt me. Help!”
Sayler? What the hell is going on? My pulse accelerates, just before someone grabs me from behind—the guy in the hoodie. “Okay, is this a joke?”
The flat side of a metal blade presses against my lips, shushing me. “It could be a joke,” he says in my ear, the hint of laughter laced in his words. “Or it could be the perfect murder. A houseful of rich college kids found slaughtered on Halloween, when everyone is behind a mask. I’ve always wanted to make my own horror film.”
“Stop. Please,” she begs again, and then a slashing sound filters down the stairs, making my stomach roll. This has to be some sick joke.
“Do you smell that?” he grits in my ear as his hand rubs along my side. I shake my head. “Blood.” He runs his nose along my neck. “I bet yours smells just as good.”
I try to step forward, but he jerks me back against his muscular frame. “Maybe I’ll have fun with you first. Nick an artery so that you’ll bleed out with every heartbeat. Fuck you while I get high off your blood. Let you weaken a little at a time until I feel your last breath leave your body just before I come.”
What the fuck? My head is spinning. Footsteps hit the staircase. A female comes running down in jeans and a white, fitted tee shirt, blood all over her, and makeup on her face that looks like her flesh is rotting. “Gabby, run!” Presley screams, and then a guy in a black cloak and Scream mask comes running after her, a knife in hand covered in red and dripping something from the tip.
I start fighting against the guy behind me, fear coursing through my veins. “This one’s a fighter,” the guy behind me says, gripping me tighter.
The guy in the mask catches up and jerks Presley back by the hair, before he swings the knife forward against her back, making her body do something weird, and then she crumples to the floor front first, the handle of the knife the only thing still showing. Red stuff starts pooling on the floor underneath her, expanding, and I scream at the top of my lungs over her still form.
My eyes gloss over and I shove forward, somehow getting loose, and take off running, despite the fact that I’m wearing heels. If I break an ankle, I don’t need it to live. The entire house becomes a blur as I run through it as fast as I can, making it to the sliding glass doors that go to the pool and outdoor space. I jerk on the door, fiddling with it, until finally, the damn thing gives and the door opens. I don’t waste a second before running out, and as I glance behind me, I crash into a large form, already swinging my fists in front of me. “Surprise!” many voices shout.
What? My heart is pounding so hard I can’t even focus on the people scattered around. My mind can’t grasp the Hallow
een decorations or the presents or the balloons because of the fear and adrenaline running through my veins. “Happy birthday, Gab,” Maddox says, calming me down instantly.
I finally look up at him, his face matching mine with a smile on his face, trying to even out my breathing. My chest is heaving. “I’m going to kill you for doing that to me.”
“Were you scared?” he asks, cocky smirk and all.
“Hell yes! My life flashed before my eyes.” I smack his arm. “Asshole.”
He turns me around, forcing me to look at a table with snacks and a three-tiered birthday cake, decorated with ghosts and goblins and headstones and pumpkins to go with the Halloween theme. On top sits a casket made of chocolate, the top open, and an impressive diamond ring is peeking out. “The way you feel right now—blood pumping, heart racing, unable to breathe and scared shitless—is the exact way I felt when I woke up that morning to you gone. When I couldn’t get you on the phone all I wanted to do was run. Fear was all I felt. I’m done living in fear that I’ll lose you.”
He reaches forward and pulls out the ring, and then he hits his knee. “Holy shit,” I whisper as I look down at him in front of me, already taking my left hand in one of his, still trying to calm down from my heightened emotional state. “Are you for real?”
He chuckles, slipping the ring on the edge of my left ring finger. I can barely see in front of me from the tears in my eyes. “Gabrielle Katerina Thanos, I knew you were the only girl for me the second I saw you. Your crazy ass stole my heart at seventeen, and I don’t want it back. I want forever. The next time we’re forced apart it’s going to be because one of us is laying in a box like the one on top of that cake. I won’t be completely happy until I can call you my wife. Happy twenty-first birthday, baby. Will you marry me?”
I intake so much air I can barely speak, my heart expanding, and even though air is in my lungs, I can’t breathe. I smile, a tear sitting on my bottom lashes, and I nod. “Yes,” I squeak. He slides the ring down my finger. Good God, it’s huge. I’m going to beat his ass for spending so much money on a ring. It’s perfect.
“Atta boy!” someone yells.
Claps and shouts go off around us as he stands, grinning from ear to ear, pulling me in his arms. “Seeing you like this took my breath away. You look better than I remember. I thought I was going to trip up.”
I tighten my arms around him, my eyes falling on everyone behind him. Some people I know, and some I don’t, making me wonder where all the extra cars are. Sayler is standing by Riggan, still looking as beautiful as she did when we got here. Presley is by Konnor, looking identical to the girl that fell on her stomach inside, only less blood, and both of them are smiling at me. And then my eyes scan to the door I ran out of and there is a girl that is dressed identical to Presley, covered in red, standing beside the hoodie guy with the hood down, though I still don’t know who that is. The other guy removes the scream mask, who I instantly recognize as Landon from following their band. I laugh. “I can’t believe you pulled this off. You’re normally horrible at surprises.”
“I had a lot of help from friends and a Halloween staging company.” Ah, all that shit outside suddenly makes sense. He pulls back and brings his phone out of his pocket, before turning on the front-facing camera, and then places the clean side of his cheek against the clean side of mine, our bodies still hugged against each other. I look at us on the screen of his phone, both serious, and in this position we each together make a full skull. “Apart we’re only halves, but together we’re whole.”
And then he snaps the photo. Words will never express how much I love him. He took a day that’s been bad for me for so long and made it the best day of my life so far. I look at him. “I love you.” I smile, taking in his large, masculine frame of solid muscle so dressed up. “And I’ll never forget seeing you on one knee.”
He smirks. “Makes you feel powerful, doesn’t it?”
My grin grows. “It kind of does.”
“Only you can bring me to my knees, baby.” And then we kiss, because we’re crazy about each other, and that’s what we do.
Twenty-Two
Maddox
The club is packed with costumes of every kind imaginable as we walk into the interior of the large open space of the nightclub, bouncing lights and laser shows hitting all around us. Rap music is blaring through the speakers. Neon is done in many colors. Last week I noticed this club throwing a Halloween party on some flyers offering pre-sale tickets to basically reserve you a place before it reached max capacity since it was a holiday. We still had to wait in line, and we still had to pay a cover fee, but it was a ‘fast pass’ line beside the normal line. I bought us all one. I didn’t need any hitches in tonight like waiting in a club line for hours. I already had a lot of hard-earned money riding on tonight. For once, I needed it to be perfect.
Landon arrived around lunch. I had to bring him up to speed. I knew he’d be the best one for the Scream part. He’s always loved horror movies and scary shit, and it required no speaking, which he prefers. It makes him much more intimidating and harder to approach for most people. Kaysen has no fucks to give in regard to a girl, unlike Riggan and Konnor, and I needed her scared, which meant someone she wouldn’t recognize, so I let him be the ‘attacker’. Everyone had a part, and I knew there was a chance it’d fall through, but luckily everything went as I had plotted it in my head.
From the second Riggan grabbed Sayler from where he was hiding out to monitor when they arrived and pulled her to the back to join the rest of us, I was a nervous wreck, pacing around like time was standing still. Had she gone any other direction the effect wouldn’t have been the same, which is why I hired a company to do it right, to draw her in.
Then she ran through that door with long blonde hair and I almost fucked up the whole thing. I froze for a second as I got a flashback of the old Gabby, only better—older, matured, more beautiful. I had to jumpstart my brain before she ran into the pool. Seeing the surprise on her face when she caught sight of the ring is something I’ll never forget. I keep reminding myself she said yes. I’ve been wearing a goofy-ass grin all night that I can’t get rid of.
After it was over, we socialized and started the birthday-engagement celebrations with alcohol. Some of Sayler’s friends from the last party we had came so there’d be people Gabby could drink with that aren’t pregnant, like Morgan for one, who played the Presley look alike inside. Kaysen said they’ve hooked up a few times, and he’s tried to make it more, but given her being away at another school she doesn’t want a relationship right now.
We follow Landon to the bar, where he takes a seat on the one empty stool. I lean forward, next to his ear. “Order me a beer and her a walk me down. Just start a tab and I’ll cover it.”
He nods. I straighten and pull Gabby in front of me. She instantly starts dancing on me, already buzzed, her left hand wrapped around the back of my neck as she rubs her ass against my crotch. I could see it in her glazed eyes earlier. I run my hand up the length of her arm and lace my fingers with hers, already twisting the ring on her finger with my thumb as I lean in. She turns her head, our mouths close. “I’m scared to ask you what you spent. I would have been happy with less, even though I’ve never seen anything this beautiful.”
I smile and kiss the corner of her mouth, my right hand rubbing along her flat stomach over the short, tight, one-shoulder black dress she’s wearing that I’ve been wanting to rip off since I first saw her in it. “I’m not going to tell you. You’ll never find the receipt. I’ve been saving for your ring since I first told you I love you. I bought what I felt you deserved; nothing more, nothing less. I didn’t go into debt to buy it. The matching band that came with it is put up for when you want to say ‘I do’.”
She turns around, wrapping both arms around my neck, still dancing against my body. I grab her ass, swaying with her. “You have?”
“Yes. I don’t tell random-ass girls I love them. I’ve always known when I felt that way
about a girl she’d be the one I was going to marry. My plan back then was to do it on your high school graduation night. I had more than two extra years to save.”
“And if I had not come to the multipurpose building that day?”
“It’d still be waiting on you, getting bigger. God knows I wasn’t interested in wrapping a diamond around anyone else’s finger.”
She’s looking at me, more beautiful than I’ve ever seen her. I loved her when she was young. I love her now that she’s a woman. I’m not going to dwell on it, but I wish I had gotten the middle too, watching her grow from that to this. “It would have broken my heart, you know, had you fallen in love with someone else. It’s one of the many reasons I deleted social media, terrified one day it would pop up that you were in a relationship or engaged. It already ate at my mind. I couldn’t have handled seeing it.”
My mouth tips. “You don’t know me at all if you think that would have ever happened. I’m not going to lie and say my family didn’t try, but it always ended with me telling them to stay out of my personal life.”
A fire lights in her eyes. “That’s because I gave it good. I made that dick love me too.”
I laugh out. “You could say that. No one ever said I love you quite like you. I could be angry enough to spit fire at you and you’d still be on my dick telling me to get the fuck over it, like that night I found out how old you were. Ten minutes after telling you we were through I was telling you I love you. Two days later I was praying for forgiveness over having sex with a junior high girl in a high school parking lot and then sneaking you out that night.”
Finding Fate Page 15
